Reflection
by Lee Tennant
Summary: Sookie reflects on everyhing that's happened to her as she attempts to clean up her house. Oneshot


**A/N This is my first True Blood fic so please be kind. It's based solely on the TV show, not the books and is set beginning Season4. I've deliberately left what happened with the Fae vague. This is just a moment in time straight after the events of Season 3.**

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Reflection

Hand in bucket, hand out of bucket. Grasp scrubbing brush firmly. Feel the certainty of the wood beneath your fingers, the rhythmic scraping of the bristles across the linoleum floor. Sookie plunged the brush back into the warm suds and attacked the dirty kitchen floor again.

From the living room she could hear the faint strains of the Dixie Chicks CD she'd slid into the aging player.

_I'm not ready to make nice_

_I'm not ready to back down_

_I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time_

_To go round and round and round_

She smiled to herself slightly, wondering how the lyrics to a song could so perfectly fit her mood at just the right time.

She wondered why she felt cleaning so relaxing, so calming. Maybe because it was something she and her Gran had done together. It was just something the Stackhouse women did. When she cleaned, she felt her Gran was right there with her.

Her Gran had always been so houseproud. Part of Sookie wanted the house to be perfect for her memory. That part of her found Marianne's devastation, the Maenad's desecration, a truly hideous violation. That part of her had come back from the cemetery that morning and realised that she _was_ that house. That ruined house full of dirty memories and destroyed dreams.

She would rebuild herself. But she needed to start here, with one scrubbing brush on a filthy kitchen floor. When she focused on the cleaning, she saw only the task. The sheer physicality of it all. Still, no matter how hard she scrubbed, in the back of her mind she saw brief glimpses: Bill's face with those tears he shed so easily and so deceptively; Eric's concrete-streaked face and cold stone soul; the golden calm of her time with the Fae. She closed her eyes and drew on that feeling of belonging and then returned to the task.

She wondered if somewhere, in dark-shrouded coffins, two vampires twitched as she came back into the world. At some point they would both come. But for now, it was bright daylight and the smell of detergent and music.

She stood up eventually and began assailing the stove and other appliances. By then, it was time for lunch and she grabbed a quick sandwich before moving to the living room.

It was more of a disaster here; the walls scraped and black and peeling and the wallpaper torn. She sighed and slumped down onto the couch; trying to keep her mind on the task and not on her virulent hatred of Bill or her confused feelings for Eric.

He was just as bad, right? Just as manipulative, just as scheming. They'd both used her. She wanted to feel just as furious toward them both but there was no escaping that Bill's betrayal was the worst.

She had been such a naive fool; tripping, skipping happily into some romantic dream with a goddamn _vampire_. She must be the biggest idiot this side of the Mississippi. Yet still her damn fool heart ached when she thought of him. She wondered if she'd dream of him still when she went to sleep at night. Either of them. Both of them.

She could almost feel them now, they were so palpable. Those dreams. So real. Cold hands, almost refreshing in the oppressive heat, fangs ghosting across her neck and to the sensitive skin at her thigh, her fingers running through blonde hair and, less frequently than she had cared to admit over the last few months, brown.

Damn blood dreams. Well, fuck them both. She was going to spend the rest of her life having nasty dreams about two damn fangers who had _both_ (she forced that word through her head) _both _manipulated her into drinking their blood.

"Fuck 'em," she said out loud. Then raised her voice louder, "Fuck 'em! Fuck 'em both."

She pushed herself off the couch and stormed out into her front yard. She was nowhere near town and no one could hear her. No one could hear her. "Fuck it!" she screamed. "Fuck them both to fucking hell! Fucking fangers! Fuck 'em all! Fuuuckkk!"

Then she took a deep breath, smiled, and took a moment to enjoy the sunlight as it baked down on her bare forearms.

She walked back into her house. It would gleam again. They'd see. They'd tried to destroy its soul but they'd failed. It would take some work but it would be rebuilt. And just let them try to get invited back in. The house may have their memories but it would never again have _them_.

Never.


End file.
